OotP: Sneaks and Spies

[jenny_ravenclaw]

No: HPFGUIDX 64878

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, the firey chasm from whence it 
came <explodingstar at a...> wrote:
 
quoting Julia (I think):
>And a quick question on a completely different topic.  Didn't anyone 
notice that Sirius didn't have the Death Eaters mark on his arm?  Even 
if the MoM didn't know about those till now, couldn't that have been 
used to prove his innocence?  This has been driving me nuts.>

and then said: 
> I'm not sure that the Dark Mark being on the DEs arms was common 
knowledge, because Fudge doesn't seem to know what Snape is talking 
about when he shows him his Dark Mark. Then again,  maybe that was 
more a matter of willful disbelief than incomprehension. It's probable 
that they'd need more proof than just the absence of the Dark Mark 
though, especially since there were eyewitnesses who swore they saw 
Black kill all those people. And since it's not widely known that 
Wormtail is alive, that also wouldn't have looked good for Sirius.>

Would you want to come forward to someone like Fudge if you were in 
Sirius's position?  He'd be likely to whip out a dementor the moment 
he saw Sirius.  Sirius has already experienced being sent to jail 
without a trial; I'm sure he's extremely reluctant to risk that again 
by approaching a moron like Fudge.  It took a lot of guts for Snape to 
admit to Fudge that he was once a DE, especially since Fudge's 
reaction to Dumbledore in GoF and for most of OoP was unpleasant, to 
say the least.

--jenny from ravenclaw, who wonders how things could be better now 
that Fudge believes *****************************